writing advice

As a writer, I struggle with writer’s block from time to time (ahem… that’s totally not an understatement.) But lately, I’ve been dealing with an issue that’s slightly different… it’s not that I can’t come up with anything or move forward on what I do have. It’s that I lose interest in–or stop caring–about my subject part of the way through writing on it.

Sometimes it’s because I realize that what I have to say isn’t as original as I thought. Other times, it’s because I look into an issue deeper and realize there is way too much information out there and I just don’t have the time to give it the justice it deserves. Sometimes, I have no idea why, I just lose interest or motivation. It’s not exactly writer’s block. It’s…

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Omigod it’s October already. Which means there’s one more month left until NaNoWriMo and two more left in 2016! The year passed quickly but I’m glad I had my writing warriors with me. Encouraging and offering support. Sharing our successes and offering a virtual shoulder to lean on. All thanks for the opportunity to band together goes to ninja extraordinaire Alex Cavanaugh.

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The Strong Female Character is here to stay. Audiences out there are, for the most part, no longer satisfied with merely getting a single token female character within a cast. She now needs to be a Strong Female Character.

She needs to kick butt all the time. She needs to take no prisoners. She needs to be a bit scary. But she also needs to fall in love with the hero. (Or that’s what movie execs seem to think. I’m looking at you, people behind Avengers: Age of Ultron.)

Don’t get me wrong. I adore the fact that the token female in a story’s cast is no longer necessarily the weakest link. But the thing is that people now seem to only equate a female character’s strength with how she can handle herself in a fight. Continue reading →

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You’ve probably read the title of today’s post and thought, what she talking about now? Let’s face it, most of the time we’re more than likely to spell a word incorrectly. But not to worry, since we have spell check to point it out to us. Just check for the red squiggly line underneath here.

Yet, as a writer you don’t want to be so reliant on spell check. Although it is a handy tool, it’s a tool that tricks you into a false sense of security. And by the end of the day, spell check is not a writer’s best friend. Here’s why:

It increases laziness. When unsure of a word’s spelling, we tend to use a watered down, cheap imitation of the word we wanted, in its place. None of us are spelling bee champs. Yet we should still strive to find and learn the correct spelling of word(s). Continue reading →